Injury blow for Lehann

Updated: July 13, 2011

By Mark Etheridge

Hurdler Lehann Fourie’s 2011 season has hit a brick wall in the form of a hamstring injury suffered in Rhede, Germany at the weekend.

After a consistent run of form which saw him regularly returning times in the mid-13sec range, Fourie fell short this time out. He won his 110-metre hurdles event in 13.62sec but his day turned sour from that point on.

Explains Fourie: “On the programme it said we run the final at 9pm and there were no prelims, so I started warming up at 7.30pm like I always do and then one athlete said they told him that morning that they have a prelim at 7.50pm. No-one had told me so I asked if I could skip the prelim and run the final but they said no.”

In the end Fourie decided to run, “but I wasn’t warmed up like I should have been. I ran the prelim [he won in 13.75] and felt my hamstring a bit, not bad, and then ran the final.

“After the final when the adrenalin ran out I started feeling it bad. Now I’m mad at myself because I felt healthy with no problems before the meet.”

The bottom line is that the hamstring is torn, between a Grade Two and Three severity which means he’s out for between six and eight weeks.

To his credit Fourie has already turned the corner and is focusing on the future. “I’ll see how I feel but I don’t want to rush to get back and then get hurt again next year, I had problems with the hamstring last year so it’s the weakest part of my body for sure.

“I want to recover and do some good preparation for next year. I wasn’t very happy with my form this year and the fact that I had three coaches in three parts of the world could be the fault. For now though I want to go back to the US soon, rehab there and start looking into doing a part time MBA or something.”